“In a controversial operation, scientists have exhumed several skeletons from Mozart’s family vault in Salzburg, where the composer spent most of his life. On Monday they appear to have discovered the remains of the composer’s 16-year-old niece Jeanette, whose bones could unlock the mystery of whether the skull, currently kept by Salzburg’s Mozarteum Foundation, really is Mozart’s.”
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Breslin: My Life With The Big Man
SuperAgent Herbert Breslin sits down with Norman Lebrecht: “Breslin in his prime would play the media and the music business like a fairground accordionist, simultaneously squeezing and stroking to pump out hullabaloo. He could be tiresomely obscene or irresistibly comic – Puck to Pavarotti’s Bottom – but there never any doubt of his driving passion. He might have made a bigger career in showbiz, but Breslin was devoted heart and soul to vocal beauty, and to Pavarotti as its supreme exponent.”
Tennessee Museum Cancels Show Because Of Sexual Images
Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts has “canceled an upcoming show featuring sexual images and containing racially charged language — a move the artist terms a ‘form of censorship’.”
UN Creates Culture Warriors (Peacekeepers)
The United Nations is setting up an international force prepared to fly in and protect culture treasures threatened by war or natural disaster. “The cultural blue berets, as they are already being called, will initially be formed entirely of Italians and could include members of Italy’s paramilitary police, the carabinieri. Yesterday’s move followed international outrage over the looting of priceless antiquities during the US-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq last year.”
Gagosian Is Art World’s “Most Powerful”
Who’s the art world’s most “powerful” figure? Art Review magazine says it’s gallery owner Larry Gagosian. The annual ranking called Mr Gagosian “the world’s greatest art businessman”.
For Sale: Broadway Dress-up
Broadway’s Theater Development Fund “began selling 20,000 costumes from its collection of nearly 85,000 in preparation for a move to a smaller space. The nonprofit Theater Development Fund, perhaps best known for its low-cost TKTS booth at Times Square, runs arts education programs and rents professional costumes at discounts to nonprofit theater groups and schools nationwide. Much of the development fund’s inventory comprises donations from the Metropolitan Opera, Broadway and private collections.”
Oscars: The Year Of No Buzz
It’s been such a lacklustre year for movies there’s little buzz about which movies might contend for Oscars. “Most years, November and December bring a number of sweeping epics and ambitious dramas to woo Oscar voters, but this year only a few such films are left to open before the end of the year.”
Hollywood’s New Asian Accent
“Something remarkable is happening in Asian cinema, and Hollywood has cottoned on. ‘Check out the latest US movie production slate and it is hard to escape the conclusion that Hollywood is turning Japanese. And Korean. With a dash of Thai and Hong Kong thrown in.”
Big Advertiser Is Listening!
It’s the latest in high-tech advertising. Little boxes are being installed along roadsides that detect which radio stations drivers are listening to. “The monitoring aims to help retailers choose where to advertise by giving them a snapshot of which stations consumers tune into as they drive by their businesses. The most enthusiastic MobilTrak adopters: auto dealers, who generally believe that 80 percent of their business is with people who live or work within 10 miles of a given dealership.”
Review-Proof: Audiences Say Movie Reviews Don’t Matter
How important are movie reviews to the success of a movie? Not much. “A survey of 2,000 people by three business school researchers found that television ads and recommendations from others were the biggest influences on movie-going habits, each factor cited by about 70 percent of respondents. Professional reviews ran a distant third at 33 percent, while online ratings on such sites as Yahoo and the Internet Movie Database influenced 28 percent.”